The subject of this thread is performance-enhancing substances. It has recently become known that Shane Mosley tested positive for dynepo (an advanced form of stamina-enhancing blood-drug epo) after his first fight with De la Hoya. I present a few points: 1) In any sport where there is similar money being made, performance-enhancing drugs make the news often -- I'm talking American football, baseball, european football, basketball, tennis, cycling and more. 2) Boxing is a sport in which blood-doping would help tremendously -- you will simply not tire. 3) Boxing has a history of corruption -- even now many dodgy decisions are handed out, which brings me to my next point. 4) Boxing is unique in that most matches are not mandatory or decided by a governmental body -- it is organized by promoters and independant fighters, making every match almost an exhibition while the governmental bodies we do have simply keep score. 5) 'It's not what you know, but who you know.' Remind you of anyone? Promoters excell at being at home with the who's who of boxing. 6) At the time of Mosley-De la Hoya, testing for blood-doping was not the norm. Now, seven years later, it is still not the norm. 7) Even if it was, there are many doctors that produce masking agents for blood-doping and other performance-enhancing drugs. The anti-doping movement is losing the 'arms-race' as it were, because the most talented doctors are where the money is, on the side of providing doping rather than counteracting it. 8) These doctors charge a lot of money, but since boxing is a sport in which money flows like wine, this is barely an issue. Conclusion: Boxing may be much more infested with doping than it seems to be -- if even Shane Mosley willingly and knowingly (and believe that to be the case -- any sane man wants to know what he's putting into his body) tried to bend the rules, expect many others to do the same in the current game where one win, or rather, one loss, could mean the difference between financial security, fame and success and virtual banishment out of the limelight, away from big purses and little chance of a quick recovery.
Hey, there is a lot of money at stake for these guys, and you don't stay young forever. If you can get away with it, there is every incentive for these fighters to cheat. The problem is they need to make sure they regulate this stuff and catch people who cheat. There's no doubt that in a sport like boxing, cheating would be a big advantage.
Epo was illegal then, just not dynepo, which does exactly the same Epo does, it's just manufactured by your own body through manipulation so it's harder to detect. Mosley basically decided to use a performance-enhancing drug because he knew he couldn't be punished for it by means of a technicality.
